Colorado MahlerFest XXXVI (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring 

Thea Musgrave: Phoenix Rising; Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection.” April Fredrick, soprano; Stacey Rishoi, mezzo-soprano; Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra; Boulder Concert Chorale; Kenneth Woods, Artistic Director & Conductor. Purchase information can be found here.

 

We have previously encountered American conductor Kenneth Woods in his role as conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra, where he has often championed the works of contemporary composers. But Woods wears another hat as Artistic Director of the Colorado MahlerFest and conductor of their orchestra. Colorado MahlerFest is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1988 that presents an annual, weeklong festival celebrating Mahler’s life and music as well as the works of composers who influenced Mahler and by composers whom Mahler in turn influenced. The orchestra is anchored by the “festival artists” who comprise the section principals and leaders. These musicians, who are all either major orchestra principals, professors, or experienced chamber musicians, do much of the recruiting for the orchestra in addition to anchoring the chamber music concerts that are also part of MahlerFest. In 2005, the International Gustav Mahler Society of Vienna awarded Colorado MahlerFest its rarely bestowed Mahler Gold Medal. MahlerFest was honored alongside the New York Philharmonic, joining such past recipients as the Vienna Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein. Last year, we reviewed MahlerFest XXXV, which featured a truly ambitious program: the grand Symphony No. 3 by Mahler along with the world premiere concert performance of Symphony No. 10 by the late English composer Christopher Gunning (1944-2023). 

This time around we are reviewing their latest CD release, which was recorded at the featured concert of MahlerFest XXXVI. As their online publicity material described it, “MahlerFest XXXVI celebrates humanity’s capacity for resilience and renewal in a festival week that culminates with Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 2 and Thea Musgrave’s Phoenix Rising. The theme for that concert, which was held on Sunday, May 31, 2023, was “Rise Again,” which captures the spirit of the music that is featured on this release. 

The Scottish composer Thea Musgrave (b. 1928), who has lived in the United States since 1972, writes of her composition Phoenix Rising, “my original sketches for this work imagined an extended single movement progressing from darkness (low and fast) to light (high, slow, and peaceful). This idea became focused dramatically in my mind only some months later, when, by chance, I saw a sign ‘Phoenix Rising’ hanging outside a Virginia coffee shop. As I like to interpret the ancient fable of the phoenix rising from the ashes as the promise of hope and rebirth, this sign struck me immediately as a visualization of what my piece was really about. Phoenix Rising is a single-movement orchestral work of about 23 minutes. The centerpiece is the magical moment when the phoenix rises. After an initial section wherein the orchestra depicts a world of stormy violence leading to a terrain of emptiness and despair, a short section marked mysterious starts with low set chords. As they gradually rise to a luminous chord played by pitched percussion (marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, and glockenspiel), imagine the fabled bird unfolding his giant wings, poised for flight. The second half of the work, in contrast, builds to a romantic climax and a coda of serenity of peace.” Although the work leans toward the abstract side, it does not lack for drama or color. The clarity of the recording helps – and by clarity, I do not mean exaggerated, close-up sound. Rather, there is a natural sense of the orchestra spread out before you, with sounds coming from many locations within a large space, much as Musgrave describes. It is a colorful, at times dramatic score; however, those who favor hummable melodies will be disappointed.

 

Then comes the main attraction, the Mahler. Conductor Woods comments that “Following a performance of the first three movements organized by his friend and colleague Richard Strauss in Berlin in March 1895, the complete symphony finally received its premiere in December. That performance was also organized by Strauss. As this year’s speaker Renate Starke-Voit writes in the introductory notes to the New Critical Edition, ‘Few masterpieces have ever premiered under such inauspicious circumstances.’ How could it have been otherwise for a work whose last line can perhaps be best translated for today’s readers as ‘everything that you fought for, that is what will carry you to God’.” Regardless of your level of belief in God, nature, nothing, anything, or whatever, it is hard not to be moved by a stirring performance of this majestic symphony, which is just what Maestro Woods and his assembled musicians deliver. Everything sounds balanced, tempos sound well-judged. It is a very good, very well-recorded performance. Yes, I’d like to hear a big organ sound in the finale, and no, it won’t displace the Klemperer/EMI as my absolute favorite – but it’s still well worth an audition. The MahlerFest website is also well worth checking out (you can find it here.)